Newly-appointed Speaker at Stormont, Mitchel McLaughlin, has called for a rebalancing of symbolism at Stormont. Good luck with that one, Mitchel. Let me make a few predictions (shut up, Virginia, please).
1. There will never be a counterpart rebalancing of the Carson statue which dominates the approach to Stormont. Since Carson was a gun-runner, Sinn Féin’s Martin Ferris is the first name that springs to mind as a counter-balance. A Kerry Shinner with his fist in the air set beside Carson? I think not.
2. Stormont is slightly out of the way; Belfast City Hall is not. At the front of City Hall there is a statue to Queen Victoria. A counter-weight would call for a republican figure – say, Countess Markievicz? Right. That’s what I was thinking myself.
3. The King’s Hall has seen many outstanding nights so it has a kind of head-start. But if we were to construct even at this stage a Michael Collins Hall or a Kevin Barry Hall of similar dimensions, that’d help rebalance a bit. Or if that was too expensive in these straitened times, we could simply change the King’s Hall name to the Collins Hall or the Barry Hall. You can see it, can’t you? Yeah.
4. Royal Avenue is one of the best-known streets in Belfast. Now that Belfast has a non-unionist majority, it’d be fitting that it be called something more democratic – say Citizens’ Avenue. Or Ireland Avenue. No? You shock me.
5. A second flag-pole at Belfast City Hall, on which (to avoid contamination) the Irish tricolour could be run up on selected days. Eighteen or nineteen would do. It’d only be acknowledging the allegiances of thousands of citizens.
Now you may say we shouldn’t be so concerned with symbols. But we are, as the lighting-up in green of Stormont indicates. And the wearing of a green tie by Peter Robinson. And poppies and Easter lilies and the rest of it. They may be only the outer trappings of what presumably is felt inside, but a lot of people attach considerable importance to them. I think Mitchel McLaughlin might be on a more likely winner if he called for a moratorium on all political symbolism for five years, just to see how we got along. I expect there’d be a huge swell of public support for such an even-handed venture, don’t you? Oh look! Isn’t that the cutest little curly tail on the third of the three pigs flying over Queen’s Bridge?
Ha ha Jude .You’re in a very skittish, playful mood today. I hope you’ve been indulging in the Devil’s Buttermilk. Have a good one!
You too, Paddy. I can be stone sober and still skittish…
An entirely reasonable point by Mitchell evoking hopeless flapping by Nelson McCausland today. Though I’m sure that was not the purpose.
But why must it be more violent men? And if it must why not a statue for Raymond McCreesh?
One ‘l’ in Mitchel, gio. Makes a difference. Re statues and R McCreesh/violent men: Belfast is bespattered with those who supported/enacted violence in the name of Britain. Are you not incensed by that?
Dr C
1/ I was under the impression from nationalists that erecting such monuments was a ‘bad’ thing and that we shouldn’t do it?
How does adding another monument help? “This is for us and this is for themuns…”
A tad divisive.
As it stands (literally) Ed’s statue a relic from a bygone era, in the same way place names in the US (a Republic) are relics from it’s bygone imperial days e.g. North & South Carolina, the Virginias, Georgia, Louisiana, Maryland.
St Petersburg in Russia retained its ‘burg’ as opposed to ‘grad’ in memory of the Germans who helped build the city.
The people who renamed it Petrograd and then Leningrad were a political group well versed in propaganda hell bent on controlling the past and thoughts of people. Sound familiar?
Removing the statue would just be the worst sort of redressing of history.
In Zagreb, Croatia you can still find places named after Tito despite the ‘revised’ modern viewpoint that he was one of the ‘bad guys’.
If Ed is such an abhorrent figure then the GAA might reconsider naming a hurling trophy after him.
2/ The countess? Why not, it could be some sort of modern Queen Elizabeth I & Grainne O’Malley type thing.
3/ There’s already Casement Park, re-naming Kings hall and other places falls into the re-dressing of history that I mentioned in ‘1’
4/ See ‘1’ and think about how this would reaffirm the consistently rubbished claim of ‘chipping away at our culture and heritage’ rant from Frazer et al.
Why would you want to prove him right?
The street names in Belfast today reflect the city’s rich imperial industrial heritage. Renaming the streets simply offers a two finger salute to the city’s past.
By all means name new roads and new streets after such figures or whatever theme but renaming old ones is petty and would set off a wave of tit-for-tat renaming all over NI.
5/ Three flag poles: 1 for British nationalists, 1 for Irish nationalists and one for Norn Iron nationalists/people who fall somewhere in between the other two poles (no pun intended).
Thanks as ever for the detailed comment AG – and remember, I don’t always believe what I write. It’s called irony…
Yeah , Jude …that’s the thing …sometimes people don’t “get” irony…which is tough because 99% of everything i write is written ironically. I’m with Am Ghob on monuments, mind. I don’t want more of the bloody things . The only monument anyone needs these days is a wee bench in a neat little park for the punters to rest their weary arses on……!
Paddy, – Maybe there’d be less need for these wee benches if the punters didn’t tire their lower orifices by expressing so much hot air.
Fair point.
‘Redressing of history’ is one way to look at it, but not a very accurate one. The fact is that Stormont, Belfast City Hall and Belfast city in general are not museums. They’re living, functioning things. It’s a more valid view, imo, that the city and Stormont should reflect the character of society now rather than it’s character a century ago.
If we’re going to preserve anything it shouldn’t be on the grounds of symbolism or age alone (and especially not on whether we’re going to offend Willie Frazer), it should be on whether the thing in question (be it a statue, painting, etc.) is remarkable in itself. In other words, if there’s nothing exceptional or remarkable about the statue of Edward Carson *as a statue*, then there isn’t really any good reason to keep it.
A rebalance of symbolism is LONG overdue. Its absolutely ridiculous that 95% of symbols within Belfast city hall (and most other councils), which has more Republican/Nationalist councillors than Unionist, is of British/Unionist culture and history. The remaining 5%, btw, isn’t all Irish, they also consist of symbols of the smaller communities within Belfast, such as the Polish, Chinese, etc communities.
The rebalancing of symbolism is inevitable, in my opinion, no matter if protests are arranged by Unionists/Loyalists to try to counteract it, like the infamous “Union Fleg” protests. Its like the Civil Rights protests in the 1960’s, the Unionist government couldn’t ignore the demands, they certainly tried their best to ignore it, crush it, etc but it all failed and eventually Catholics got their civil rights, an end to discrimination in employment, housing, etc.
What hope do Unionists have today in denying fairness and equality when It comes to symbols/flags with Catholics becoming the majority and Republicanism (in the form of Sinn Fein) getting more and more elected representatives to the point Sinn Fein will be bigger than the DUP? Unionists and Loyalists know what’s coming down the road and instead of them trying to reach a fair compromise with their Republican neighbours they continue to bury their head in the sand in the hope when they pull it out it will be the year 1912 again.
Happy St Patricks Day Jude and to all the contributors on the site (yes, even you too Neill) 🙂
Ryan
“A rebalance of symbolism is LONG overdue. Its absolutely ridiculous that 95% of symbols within Belfast city hall (and most other councils), which has more Republican/Nationalist councillors than Unionist, is of British/Unionist culture and history”
Before you expunge an important piece of history from a town’s books you might want to consider how much of said offensive paraphernalia is in fact ‘Irish’ paraphernalia.
For example, the last time I was there, there were many exhibits from the IRISH regiments of the British army.
That would firmly put those artefacts within the Irish cultural camp in the same way that Scottish highland regiments are in the Scottish camp or how Chindits were in the Indo-Burmese cultural camp.
Yes, all three had a British anchor but the national flavour of all three were strikingly different and independent culturally speaking.
To exorcise a cultural aspect from one’s history simply because you don’t share their view or find them distasteful is a very shallow act. Why not just rename Longford or strangford while you’re at it?
Vikings: a bunch of rapey, blood thirsty invaders who colonised the island: basterbs! Let us remove all trace of their history and speak of them no more!!!
I don’t mind a ‘redressing’ of symbols but I do believe that Irish nationalists are particularly ill-equipped to deliberate as to which symbols are ‘Irish’ or not. Recently two shinners decreed an Irish artist as ‘no longer Irish’ because said muse did not advocate their own views on Scottish independence.
The badges of the RUC, the RIC, the UVF, etc etc are quite clearly of Irish origin regardless of their political gravitation.
It’s just that loyalists and nationalists ironically see eye to eye on the matter of their ‘non-Irishness’ hence I discount the opinion of both extreme poles.
The Lord Mayor’s chain is clearly a unionist inception but it bears the phrase “Erin Go Bragh”, is it for the chop or is it sufficiently ‘Irish’ enough?
With regards to flags at city hall I proposed a scheme that suits all demands: Irish nationalist recognition, British nationalist recognition and Northern Irish & letsgetalongerist recognition.
Am Ghob…I’m sure some of those Vikings were awfully nice chaps…maybe they just got a bit of bad press from the locals for stealing their girlfriends . ..you know the way these females will chuck themselves at any exotic menfolk and that….especially foreign ones with a whiff of adventure about them…all that flowing long hair and those cute accents…..just saying….!!
That made me laugh.
There was an interesting piece in last Saturday’s Guardian by Paul Kingsnorth about English identity. Worth a read if you’re so inclined –
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/mar/13/englands-uncertain-future
Part of the intro had some parallels with our predicament here, where Kingsnorth discusses the issue of flying of George cross flags with a friend…
“What do you think that’s about?” my friend asked. “Why do you think you see so many of them in places like this now?”
I said I hadn’t thought about it. But it seemed my friend had. He told me it reminded him of a road trip he had taken when he was younger across the southern states of the US: the former Confederacy. There, he said, you would often see the old Confederate flag flying in similar places: unofficial, at once underground and open, an act of defiance.
“It’s not the same,” he said, “but it’s sort of similar, isn’t it? It’s like the sign of a people that lost. But they’re saying ‘We’re still here’.”
All symbols should be Nationalist only, for the next say fifty years or so, that would be a start. Either that or bull doze that hideous gun runner and traitor Carson`s statue. The famine queen could go too.
Symbols Jude, and cultural expressions including those old classics “up to our necks on fenian blood surrender or you’ll die, for we are the Billy Billy Boys”. Without digressing too much from the Symbols/Statues topic at hand, I must give you my brief reflections on this Hate Song and the measured responses that abounded. I recall you being compared to a Moral Guardian, and even Mary Whitehouse was cited as someone who you are similar to in the to in the pruddish cart blanche censorship debate
A person who is closer to your real disposition on these matters thought you were unfairly being denigrated and contended that the idiots who deemed no Connection exists between hate Speech abs Hate Crime….are just talking “Tripe”.
You are well able articulate yourself without passionately fired up affiliates of yours on your blog. While Francis got passionate in recalling the incident where his son was traumatized, my criticism to you, respectfully tendered, was that you were a tad bit behind the door in properly hammering these idiots in their support for the freedom to loudly express, inspire and provoke such Sectarian Hate through their fascist songs. Happily, though less Adept at the radio protocol thing during the debate, you have friends who will rally to you defence. The man suggesting you some sort of moral prude, meant F changed his approach to suggest that the Hate maggot, should have had a four year sentence and not a mere four month one. You have friends in many places Jude. Slainte, f
Jude doing irony who knew that? 😉
Talk of eradicating history is silly. McLoughlin isn’t speaking of removing history, merely adding to it. I agree a re-balance is long overdue.
AG
‘The street names in Belfast today reflect the city’s rich imperial industrial heritage. Renaming the streets simply offers a two finger salute to the city’s past.’
I have long thought that a number of Belfast city streets should be renamed, simply on the grounds that they are crap. Belfast is a city with crap street names, which have had precious little purchase on the popular imagination. (No-one knows where Fountain Street is. Everyone knows where ‘the back of Boots’ is.) Most of the street names are so un-evocative as to be practically meaningless.
We don’t need to have literally DOZENS of streets named after one family (anything mentioning Arthur, Chichester, Donegall, Shaftesbury, Earl all refer to the same shower – indeed for the most part they refer to a single fella) even if they were paragons of perfection – which they weren’t, they were actually a crowd of parasitic scumbags and an absolute menace to the early growth of the city.)
We don’t need both a Victoria Street and a Great Victoria Street. We don’t need a Queen’s Bridge and a Queen Elizabeth Bridge. (Confusion over these two adjacent bridges actually caused a riot among fleggers taking the wrong way home a couple of years ago.) We don’t need tautological absurdities like ‘Ulsterville’.
And no town anywhere in Ireland should have a street or road named Cromwell. That’s just sick.
There are things that the street names of Belfast could and should reflect, but don’t: the city’s artistic and cultural treasures, its great artists and scientists and activists, its former status as Ireland’s intellectual powerhouse, the more positive aspects of its religious inheritance (and positive aspects DO exist!), its proud record as a beacon of abolitionism, its tradition of trades unionism, or as a hothouse of publishing – all this, and lots more besides.
And of course the city’s anti-imperialist heritage. (Which is what nationalism is.)
Practically all of the above goes without representation in the topography of the city. Instead we have scores, perhaps hundreds of streets with names the meaning of which have passed into arcana, but which usually turn out to refer to some imperial skirmish in which the mutton-chopped redcoats bayonetted some poor unfortunate dark-skinned rabble, for reasons no-one remembers, and in places few could identify on a map.